Superstitions orientales, ou tableau des erreurs et des superstitions des principaux peuples de l'orient, de leurs moeurs, de leurs usages et de leur législation. Par un Société de gens de lettres [ J

£2,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A handsome copy of the first edition of this study of faith, customs and superstitions of Eastern countries (present-day Asia and the Middle East). The fascination of superstition and religion for the rational mind of the 18th century knows no bounds. Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary wrote: ’ If it is Zoroaster who first announced to mankind that fine maxim: “In the doubt whether an action be good or bad, abstain from it,” Zoroaster was the first of men after Confucius … If this beautiful lesson of morality is found only in the hundred gates of the “Sadder,” let us bless the author of the “Sadder.” There may be very ridiculous dogmas and rites united with an excellent morality’. As the author of the present work writes in his preface ‘one would blush to belong to a race so feeble, so credulous from its birth as is man. His history is but a tissue of inept, inconsequential, and puerile acts’. This interest in Zoroaster and the religion of the Parsees was obviously partly based on actual contacts in Bombay (Mumbai) and the reports in travel literature, and partly on other ancient written sources. In France there were two figures who stand out, the abbé Foucher, who is mentioned in the preface to this book, was a correspondent of Voltaire (O euvres Complètes 70B), and published various learned articles on Zoroastrianism and Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805) the translator of the Avesta (completed 1760; published in three volumes in 1771), to whom reference is also made. The

• Binding: Hardcover

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